The laboratory had a room with reinforced plexi-glass walls. There was a man in a hospital gown tied down to the medical bed. The man was currently in a coma.
Qiao Chen and his assistant walked in. They injected the person on the bed with some sort of medicine. Then they loosened the straps that held the person down. Finally, Qiao Chen performed a simple examination and attached various instruments to the person's vitals.
Nearly all of the higher ups of the base were stood outside the room observation everything Qiao Chen was doing. They were looking intently at the person on the hospital bed. The way they looked was similar to how one would look at a priceless antique as they waited for Qiao Chen to confirm his results.
Qiao Chen exited the glass room and his assistant followed behind and closed all the doors and locked all the locks on the door. Then they waited outside as they watched for the person inside the room to awaken.
Qiao Chen walked to Long Ao's side and stood there. Long Ao took advantage of the angle they were at. This angle perfectly hid their hands from others' prying eyes, so Long Ao took this opportunity to slip his hand over Qiao Chen's.
Dr. Lu's assistants were recording the data from the screen and comparing it from their previous records.
The man on the hospital bed opened his eyes and slowly sat up. He looked around and noticed every one watching him intently and was startled. He immediately put up his vigilance and looked at everyone defensively.
Qiao Chen's assistant immediately pulled up his tablet and told the man not to worry while explaining to him that they were all good people. Then Qiao Chen's assistant continued to explain that the man was turned into a zombie, but was given a serum to turn him back into a human. They obviously wouldn't hurt the man because of this, so the assistant assured the man that he didn't need to be afraid.
The person listened to the assistant, but still looked at the people outside with wary eyes.
Then Qiao Chen's assistant wrote some instructions on his tablet and asked the man to follow his directions.
The man initially hesitated, but felt that the directions were simple enough, so he followed them.
Dr. Lu's assistant finally stopped scribbling in his notes and excitedly turned to Dr. Lu. He reported, "All his vitals are near normal levels."
Another assistant happily reported, "Behavior and consciousness are the same as normal people. There are no indicators of violent or zombie-like reactions."
The people around the room gradually showed a smile. This meant that the experiment was at least half successful. They saw the proof with the man before their eyes. Over the past few days, this person slowly transformed from a lower leveled zombie who would only lunge and attack to this cognizant, regular human being.
Qiao Chen, however, didn't look excited at all. This was because even though the person didn't seem to be any different from the common man, this experiment wasn't 100% complete without the final test. He didn't dare relax his guard just yet.
Qiao Chen's assistant looked at him and waited for his signal. Qiao Chen nodded and said, "Begin the final test."
Qiao Chen's assistant pressed the button on the remote in his hand. Soon the glass room was filled with the scent of blood. Everyone saw the man inside begin to frown. Then he covered his mouth and nose with his hand.
Qiao Chen's assistant wrote the instructions on the tablet again and then asked the person inside the room to open the box located under his bed. The person was already getting impatient from all these tests and didn't want to follow the directions. However, he read the instructions and it said that he would be able to leave this room once he completed this last step. He thought about it a bit more before he decided to listen and did as he was told.
The person inside the room dragged the box from out under the medical bed. He opened it and immediately fell to the ground in fear. His eyes were wide open with horror and he quickly pushed himself as far as he could from the box as possible.
The box contained a very lifelike model of a dead human being. The entire body was covered in blood. There was also a very strong scent of blood emanating from the box. If a person still had some sort of zombie instinct or attribute in their body, then they would have an abnormal reaction. These reactions would consist of excitement, emotional instability, a continuous secretion of saliva, etc.
Luckily, the man inside the room didn't have any of these reactions. He had the normal human reaction and was even vomiting from disgust.
Qiao Chen's eyes never left the man for even a moment during this entire process. He concentrated on observing every single change in the man's facial expressions very carefully.
After all the data was compared, Qiao Chen announced, "The test is successful!"
The heavy weight on everyone's shoulders was finally lifted. They all began to excitedly applause. They all expressed their joy and feelings of excitement among another. Qiao Chen and Dr. Lu were slowly surrounded by the crowd.
The man in the glass room vomited until his stomach was empty. He could only dry heave now. He was very confused over the excitement of the people who were watching him from outside.
He thought to his self, 'Did these people have an abnormal kink where they put people like him in here with things like this for fun?' He looked at the people some more, but they didn't look like people who'd have such abnormal interests.
Long Wu shook Dr. Lu's hand. His excitement couldn't be suppressed as he excitedly said, "Mr. Lu… it's been two years now. We can finally see the light at the end of this hellish tunnel. We can begin restoring the world to how it was before! Thank you so much!"
"I can't take all the credit. This was the result of everyone's hard work- especially Mu Chen. I don't know how long it would have taken for us to complete this experiment without his assistance."
"Yes! I also want to thank you Mu Chen! You've worked very hard during this period. Everyone who will be saved by this serum will remember your kindness!" Long Wu looked at Qiao Chen and said, "You must take care of your health hand remember to rest when you need it. Neither you nor Dr. Lu can work yourselves into exhaustion anymore. There are still many people who will rely on you in the future."
Qiao Chen said a few modest words. Then he dealt with the other people who came over to express their excitement. The celebratory atmosphere lasted in the laboratory for a long time.
Long Ao immediately hugged Qiao Chen after they returned to the room. "You're really amazing. Did you know that? Ever since I was young, I have always wanted to become a hero just like that man I idolized. However, I found out that the person I who I thought was a hero actually wasn't one- a true hero anyways. Furthermore, being a hero in everyone's eyes isn't something that everyone can become, but you did it. You are the true hero here. You've become everyone's savior. "
"I'm happy for your praise and compliments, but could you please loosen up? You're going to hug me to death." Qiao Chen said breathlessly with Long Ao's arms wrapped tightly around him.
Long Ao let go and gently held Qiao Chen's face and said, "I'm so happy. Even though you are everyone's hero… You are my one and only Mu Chen."
"Then you should be my one and only too, right?" Qiao Chen asked with a smile.
"Of course! My heart was already yours from the moment I laid eyes on you. I only belong to you."
Qiao Chen's eyes were glued to the ground. It looked like he was looking for something.
"What are you looking for?" Long Ao asked and looked at the ground too.
"You're too sappy. Look at how many goose bumps I have now." Qiao Chen complained, but he couldn't hide the look of joy in his eyes.
Long Ao threw Qiao Chen on the bed and took off his clothes in twos and threes. "Let me help you see how many goose bumps you have."
"Can you do it gently? Ah!" Qiao Chen smacked Long Ao on the shoulder, "Ease up."
The two looked like they were childishly fighting with each other. One hit the other and the other retaliated. It was a back and forth until Qiao Chen was completely overwhelmed and the fighting turned into 'wrestling'.
After a short break, Long Ao was about to go for round two when an alarm suddenly sounded. Long Ao's communicator also rang.
Long Ao immediately jumped out of bed and looked at his communicator. Qiao Chen slowly got up from the bed. Then he quickly put his clothes on and ran out with Long Ao.
"What's the matter?" Qiao Chen ran with all his strength to keep up with Long Ao's jog.
"There was an incident in the research building. Someone broke in and injured grandpa." Long Ao said. He immediately rushed off after speaking. Qiao Chen couldn't even see his back after a short while.
Qiao Chen ran so fast that he ran out of breathe. He stopped outside the research building to catch his breath before continuing in. Qiao Chen looked up to see two soldiers rushing out from the inside. They stopped in front of him and reported, "Dr. Mu, Dr. Lu is dying. You must save him."
"Where was he hurt?" Qiao Chen asked as he ran in.
"The head. Dr. Lu lost a lot of blood when we arrived. Now his breathing is getting weaker and weaker." The soldier replied.
Qiao Chen asked the soldiers to inform the other doctors to prep the instruments and medicines needed for the operation room. Qiao Chen took the gauze off Dr. Lu's bloodstained head and used his healing ability on the wound first.
When he was about to wheel Dr. Lu into the operating room, QiaoChen looked ip to see Long Ao. Long Ao's face was scrunched up and his eyes were full of gloom. He knew that he was in a bad mood and was worried that he would lash out while he was operating. Qiao Chen said, "There might not be enough blood in the blood bank. Go and draw some blood for me to use later. Don't worry. I will do my best to rescue Dr. Lu."
Long Ao nodded and watched Qiao Chen and the other doctors push his grandfather into the operating room.
After for to five hours of operation, Qiao Chen finally came out of the operating room. He walked to Long Ao who was leaning on the wall and said, "He's not in a critical condition anymore. However, he is older, so he will require a long recovery period before he fully recovers.."
Long AO nodded. Although his face was still furrowed, he was relieved to hear that his grandpa was no longer in danger.
"What's going on? Who broke in to the building and injured Dr. Lu?" Qiao Chen asked.
"Fang Jianping snuck in with Sun Bin and Sun Yu. They were trying to steal your and grandpa's results. No one knows why grandpa decided to suddenly return to the lab, but he did and ran into them. They injured grandpa and ran away. He did his best to press the alarm before he passed out." Long Ao explained. The soldiers had already come by to report their investigations to him while he waited outside the operating room.
Fang Jianping stole Dr. Lu's assisstant's lab entry card. Then he had his own assistant pass the card to Sun Bin and Sun Yu. He secretly took them to the laboratory and was caught by Dr. Lu as they were about to leave. When they encountered each other, Dr. Lu got a hold of Fang Jianping. Then Fang Jianping injured Dr. Lu so he could escape.
Qiao Chen didn't really think that these people would be so ballsy. Weren't they afraid that Long Ao would tear them limb from limb? "Where are they now?" Qiao Chen asked.
"They were protected by the people from 03 Base. Zhang Gang brought some soldiers with him and asked Mr. Feng to hand them over but was refused."
"The people from 03 Base actually dare to oppose East One on their own base? That basically means they've already stolen what they wanted, so they don't want to stay on the base right?" Qiao Chen wasn't in a hurry to get his research results back from Fang Jianping and the others. He used his system to encrypt the data. It was impossible for anyone else to crack it, and the only people who knew the password was Dr. Lu and himself.
"Yes. Just before you left the operating room, they had already told the army commander to return the aerospace incubator before they left East One Base."
Long Ao was very calm, but the kind of calmness he had made Qiao Chen shudder. Qiao Chen knew that this was the calm before the storm.
It was as Qiao Chen had said. 03 Base was filled with snakes and wolves. Even if Commander Feng hadn't ordered Xu Jianping and Sun Yu to steal the research materials he still had the idea to. Otherwise Sun Yu and his little group wouldn't have done it. Furthermore, after Sun Yu and them successfully stole the research data, Commander Feng decided to protect them instead of handing them over. His intentions were very obvious.
The people of 03 Base were pinned in by the people from East One. After thoroughly discussing it, the leaders of the East One Base decided to allow the people from 03 to leave. However, 03 had to leave the aerospace incubator and Fang Jianping, the one who wounded Dr. Lu, behind. If not, then they'd never be able to leave in one piece.
Xu Jianping knew that if he stayed behind, then Long Ao wouldn't let him live a single day without regret. He begged and begged Commander Feng to take him with them.
It was quite good that Commander Feng would be able to leave safely. There wasn't any base who wouldn't accept him. Furthermore, since East One decided to let them leave, then they needed to leave immediately lest East One decided against their initial decision. They had the research data anyways. They could leave the things with less use behind. Ultimately, Commander Feng agreed to East One Base's conditions to leave.
However, the people who had take refuge with them as they traveled to East One Base refused to leave.
The second they arrived at East One, they immediately had better living conditions than they did at 03. Staying here made them forget the outside world filled with monsters and death. They never lost a night's sleep worrying over the next zombie attack while they were here either. They no longer had to live in constant fear about being infected with the zombie virus. East One was the base with the best medical and research personnel, and the most important thing about East One Base was that everyone here was treated as a person.
There were a lot of soldiers from 03 Base who didn't want to leave either. However, obedience was the nature of soldiers. They were also different from the civilians. Staying behind was tantamount to munity and betraying their command. How would a base accept a soldier who has betrayed their commander, their battalion?